TRAGEDY AT SLIPPER MAN'S HOUSE • Brother killed • China wife arrested • Sis-in-law badly hurt• Dad moved out of this house after sons married China women

RESIDENTS living near opposition politician Tan Lead Shake - better known as the 'Slipper Man' for his trademark footwear during elections - were used to hearing loud quarrels from his house in Tai Keng Gardens, Paya Lebar.

Slipper Man's house in Tai Keng Gardens, Paya Lebar.

But yesterday, the fights took a tragic turn when Mr Tan's younger brother, Lead Sane, 34, died from multiple stab wounds.

Lead Shake's China-born wife Wu Yun Yun, 26, was arrested in Victoria Street at about 1pm, after a blood-stained knife was found in the family's two-storey house.

She will be charged with murder tomorrow.

If found guilty, she faces the death penalty.

Lead Sane's wife, who is also from China, is still in critical condition in Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) after suffering neck injuries, believed to be slash wounds.

Family members had found the injured couple in a bedroom and called the police.

One of the Tans' neighbours, Mr Andre Frois, 23, a freelance writer, saw Lead Sane on a stretcher as he was taken to an ambulance around 6amyesterday.

Mr Frois said: 'I woke up at 5.30am as I wasn't feeling well. Just as I was about to go back to sleep, I heard shouts from the Tans' house.

A police investigator examining the porch, where several blood stains were found.

'I didn't think anything was amiss as the family sometimes argued.

'I then heard someone shouting 'leng jing, leng jing' (Mandarin for stay calm) and the children in the house were crying.

'After that, I saw the family members walking up and down to get cloth to stop the bleeding. There were blood stains on the porch.'

Lead Sane, who was found bare-bodied, was sent to TTSH but died at 7am.

When reporters arrived at their house in Paya Lebar Crescent, several police cars had lined the road and the area outside the house was cordoned off.

A white Mercedes car and a red Renault Kangoo van were parked out front.

While more than 10 neighbours went over to gawk at the commotion, the Tans remained reticent.

When one of Mr Tan's brothers left the house with two young children in his arms, he warned reporters not to follow him.

Troubled: Mr Tan Lead Shake following a police officer to record his statement in slippers.

Before driving away in a black Toyota, he said: 'Don't follow me or I'll turn nasty.'

At about 1.20pm, Lead Shake, a member of the National Solidarity Party, followed police officers out of the house to give his statement.

Wearing the same footwear that earned him his nickname, he remained tight-lipped and grim-faced as cameras clicked away.

His mother emerged from the house at 1.40pm, carrying an infant in cloth diapers.

Her voice breaking, she said in Hainanese: 'My son was a good man.'

She declined to comment further and left under police escort.

The only family member who was missing was Mr Tan's father, Mr Tan Soo Phuan, 72, who did not contest the last elections in 2006.

Father and son were election candidates in 1997 and 2001 but the senior Mr Tan, the former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, did not contest in 2006.

Lead Shake, who was then a senior network administrator in a multi-national corporation, had told reporters then that his father was disillusioned with the way elections were run.

Lead Shake, who contested under the Singapore Democratic Alliance at Tampines GRC, lost in the polls.

It seemed that the Tan family was not too popular around its neighbourhood.

One 50-year-old neighbour, who asked to be known only as Madam Tan, said: 'The family wasn't close to neighbours. We would only nod when we saw them. Nobody would want to associate with quarrelsome people.'

Mr Frois and another resident, teacher Lin Yan Ping, who is in her 30s, said Mr Tan and his brothers often quarrelled with their parents.

Ms Lin said: 'They have been living here for more than 20 years and even before they were married, the brothers had frequent shouting matches with their parents.

'A few years ago, their father moved out of the house after they married the mainland Chinese women. I heard from other residents that he didn't get along with his daughters-in-law.'

The loud arguments continued anyway, even after the brothers had children, Ms Lin said.

Lead Shake has a son, 5, and a daughter, 2.

Ms Lin added: 'It seemed that quarrelling was a way of life in the family. There were even times when they fought in the middle of the night and it was not uncommon for neighbours to find it hard to sleep.

'Last week, I saw the wife of one of the brothers taking the children for a walk and she seemed unhappy.